The war for Chocolate
by Snowskeeper
Summary: A Steel Sentinels parody, rated K  for violence and implied swearing.


Personas:

Brigadier General Baathus Katoral, Valhalla.

Specialist Snowskeeper Ferenczy, Commando Class, Airburst Missiles, no EMP, Scanner.

Grand Dictator Willy Wonka, Hacked Babel, Hacked Weapons, Hacked Shield, Hacked Health., Hacked Tactical Nuke.

Chocolate... The fuel of a Steel Sentinel. This magical substance can cause a Steel Sentinel, a towering metal machine that houses a computer to which is transmitted commands, to move, fight, and in some circumstances dance. These massive machines used to battle over Solarite, a strange substance used in the production of more Sentinels, as well as research. However, as Fossil Fuels became suddenly unobtainable, Solarite was completely forgotten, in the mad war for Chocolate. In the midst of this battle, one man took control.

His name is Willy Wonka. I kid you not.

Using his armies of Umpa-Lumpas as manual drivers of Steel Sentinels, which eliminated the problem of transmission time between console and controller, and using his oceans of Chocolate as fuel, he began to conquer all human planets in the galaxy. The Umpa-Lumpas, a race of super-cheap hard labourers, none-the-less seem to exhibit good knowledge of the working of a Sentinel, and all planets have fallen under their control.

All, that is, but one.

Olympus, the planet that was originally believed to be the resting place of gods for its vast differences between hours in climate and weather, is the last stand of two famous Sentinel pilots. Holed up in a bunker somewhere, they pilot their Sentinels to defend the colony of New Sparta against the Umpa-Lumpa advances. They are not alone, because even now, new Sentinels are being produced from the once-famous abandoned Solarite mines under the ground, and soon, perhaps, they will be able to make a return strike, because Willy Wonka does not know how to mine Solarite, so once one of his Sentinels is gone, he has to wait until one of his subject-planets produces one, and risk it being booby-trapped.

But until the Sentinels are made, and New Sparta is secure, Snowskeeper Ferenczy and Baathus Katoral will have to hold their ground...

Snowskeeper Ferenczy leapt his Sentinel through the air, sitting not in the chair-and-console systems most other Sentinel pilots used but in a full-on body simulator. The consoles, he believed, didn't give the proper sense of what was going on, and though he would be knocked over if his Sentinel was, he believed it was more than worth a few extra bruises if he was more able to get back up and start firing again.

_And, let's face it, you love the rush too... _he thought to himself. It was true. The battlefield was overlaid on his vision, and he really felt like he was his Sentinel. His Commando, a slow machine equipped with the modern-day equivalent of an old-earth Sniper Rifle known as the Rifled Cannon, a gun that sent sprays of plasma through the air in a deadly burst of blue fire he aptly called the Plasma Spray, a Flak Repeater for flying opponents, and a few Airburst Missiles to stop anyone who he thought might be a threat if they got in close. Even if they did, they would have to deal with his deadly EMP laceration, which was the equivalent of a sword made out of energy draining plasma.

An Umpa-Lumpa controlled Slave entered his field of vision, and he smiled. His opponent had made himself an easy target, never a good idea on this big of a field. He fired his rifled cannon, smashing directly into the part of the Slave the Umpa-Lumpa rode in. The slave stopped, slowly tilted forward... and smashed into the ground, as its driver perished under thousands of tons of fire and shrapnel. To him, through the eyes of his Sentinel, it looked as if he had thrown a small fireball at the chest of the beast, but to anyone outside of a Sentinel or not hooked up to it's optics, it would look like an explosion the size of a small building. Carefully stepping over the Sentinel (something someone using a console would be unable to do, he thought), he searched for another opponent.

He found one almost immediately. It was another Commando, and already in Laceration range. He cursed and began to charge up his own, but he knew it would most likely be too late. His Commando was already damaged from today's battle, and a strike from a strong weapon such as that would most likely render his sentinel inoperable, which they could fix later, or destroyed, which they couldn't. He could have sworn he heard laughter through his speaker.

Suddenly, dozens of rockets descended from the heavens, striking directly onto the carapace of the enemy Sentinel. It shuddered and took a step backward, the energy charging in it's right arm dissipating... and giving Snowskeeper a change to act. With a cry of rage he slashed forward, feeling himself move even though he knew that in reality he was suspended above the floor by stabilizers. His arm, encompassed in a shiny cocoon of blue energy, slashed through his opponent, who, having been weakened by the barrage, had no chance of surviving the deadly slash of the EMP laceration. It's shields flickered, flashed once, and went out. The Sentinel itself did not go out in any such quiet way. It began to separate, then exploded in a brilliant blast of light, shrapnel, and fire. The shrapnel pinged off Snowskeeper's shields, and there was a slight dip, but otherwise he suffered no damage. A Valhalla-class sentinel descended from the heavens, gravity pods allowing it to jump far higher and farther than normal. Brigadier General Baathus Katoral's sentinel landed right next to the Sentinel.

"Took your sweet time." Snowskeeper muttered over the comm.-unit.

"Hey, give me some respect, I'm a superior rank than you."

"No, you're not."

"You're a specialist. I'm a Brigadier General. Just a slight different in ranks, wouldn't you agree?"

"Yeah, but the chain of command doesn't exactly apply out here, after most of the military is gone."

"Not when I'm around."

"Sure, whatever- Oh, Golem, step back please." The General stepped back, and Snowskeeper fired his rifled cannon. Three of the rounds hit the slow-moving guns platform in the treads, causing it to fall over. When it attempted to turn over to continue to fire, Snowskeeper launched some more rounds at it. One of them hit it straight in the head, effective silencing visuals. The others missed, but it didn't mattered. In a blind panic, the Umpa-Lumpa inside the machine began firing wildly, and at least half of its shots impacted on itself. The rest were within splash range. The Golem was completely destroyed.

"Another point to me."

"We're playing with points?"

"Of course. You've got 1, because you did most of the damage to that Commando, but I've got two, one from that Golem, and one from that slave there." He gestured at the Slave lying on the floor, still flickering with energy and gushing burning chocolate.

"Ok..." Suddenly, the Valhalla lifted its Plasma Cannon and fired a few gouts into the air. It struck the Aquila that had been coming towards them head-on, vaporising the craft.

"Now it's a tie."

"Ok then. On the count of three... two... one... go!" They both moved in opposite directions, heading towards the small swarms of enemies coming over the horizon.

"It was a tie."

"Oh, come on, Hurricanes are too weak to count! You just shoot them up a bit with the Flak Cannon, and they're gone."

"I don't have flak cannon."

"And whose fault is that?"

"...Whatever. We've repelled the forces from the planet again, it seems. But apparently, Willy Wonka himself has taken an interest in our planet. He's coming here."

"Oh great, as if thousands of Umpa-Lumpas weren't enough."

"That's what I thought."

"Well, his Babel isn't much tougher than normal ones, is it?" Snowskeeper asked

"Yes it is. He's killed thousands of enemies with it, and we don't know how."

"...So? Babels are tough. Most people don't know how to kill them. You just stay out of their way, shoot them in the back a few times, run away again, rinse and repeat."

"I agree, yes, but that doesn't mean this'll be easy." Baathus replied.

"It should be easier for you, because you can fly easier and move faster." Snowskeeper apparently hadn't noticed that Baathus had already agreed with him about the fact that it'd be possible..

"I've already &*&$*#& agreed with you."

"Alright, alright, no need to let loose with a stream of expletives."

"I only *%#&*$ swore once."

"Twice now. There might be a kid reading this, watch your language."

"..."

"Hey, don't waste paper on silence!"

*Katoral utters a few sentences in his planet's home language. Most of them were profanities, so I'm not gonna bother translating.*

"Aw, that wasn't nice." Snowskeeper berated Baathus.

"This isn't some sort of story!"

"Sure it isn't, sure it isn't. In any case, do you know when Willy Wonka's going to get here?"

"In about five minutes."

"...What the heck? Why didn't you tell me before?"

"You didn't give me a chance!"

"Whatever, get to the controller!" Both of the men charged to their controllers. Baathus Katoral was the only other person who used the same style as Snowskeeper.

"All systems online, scanning for atmospheric ruptures..." The rupture would signal the Babel entering the atmosphere.

"Alright, got one. Deploying..." Both Sentinels were sent flying through the air from a launcher in their drop pods.

"Here we are! Deploying Sentinels from the pods..." The pods exploded on impact, releasing the Sentinels.

"Full chocolate... All plasma-systems go..." Baathus muttered.

"Welcome, mortals! Today your little rebellion will end!" Screamed a really high pitched and annoying voice, descending from the heavens.

"Oh god, he's going to sing. He always sings before he does this." Snowskeeper moaned.

"I've got an easy way to stop us from hearing that."

"What's that?"

"Turn off audio."

"...Oh." two clicks sounded as both of the warriors turned off their sound systems temporarily. The Babel started moving around in something that was supposed to be dancing but looked more like he was hopping around in circles.

"Ok, I've had enough of this." Baathus levelled his Plasma Cannon at the dancing Babel and fired. The round splashed all over it, in a shot that would have put a solar flare to shame. A few seconds later, the burning plasma dripped off the still dancing Babel. The Babel stopped, shook its head condescendingly at the Valhalla, and fired a huge continuous beam of light. The Valhalla was sent flying backwards, smashing into a nearby wrecked building.

Snowskeeper jumped just in time to avoid the same fate- only to be shot at by AMRADS. He managed to avoid those too, and launched half a dozen balls of Plasma at the Babel. The plasma rounds splashed off, but they distracted the Sentinel, who couldn't see past the fiery blue liquid. Baathus was back on his feet by now, swearing steadily into his microphone, and taking out his combat knife, which represented his close-combat weapon. He began to advance, firing Doomsday Cannon and Plasma Cannon all the way. This seemed to irritate the self proclaimed Grand Dictator, who immediately acquired a target lock when Snowskeeper's barrage wore off and began to return fire. The Valhalla jumped, its feet just barely clearing the blast.

"This guy hacks!" Snowskeeper shouted into the microphone.

"What does that mean?"

"He used seriously illegal modifications on his Sentinel, making it extremely powerful. All hacked Sentinels have a single weak point that makes them shut down, though. Just cover it!"

"Alright. Deploying Titanic Missile Pod..." The missiles flew towards the Babel, but were shot down by AMRADS.

"Dammit!" Suddenly, a wave of energy slammed over the flying Valhalla, and caused it collapse, barely functioning.

"Crap!" The Commando avoided a similar fate for half a second, but then was hit by a nuke.

"Why... Why didn't he do that at first?" Screamed Baathus.

"Is your Sentinel still functioning?" Snowskeeper said quietly.

"Just barely, I can still see the battlefield, why?"

"Look at Willy Wonka's left foot. Zoom in all the way on it."

"I don't see how that'll help..."

"Just do it!"

"Alright, alright, no need to get angry about it. Wait, is that a six-year-old girl?"

"Yup."

"How did she get over here from the village?"

"Don't ask me! But we have to save her!"

"We're still back in the base! Our Sentinels are non-functioning, and he's standing right there anyway! What are we supposed to do?"

"I don't know-"

"We have to just watch." Snowskeeper whispered. The kid walked the remaining few feet to the foot, stared angrily at the machine, and kicked it. The Sentinel teetered, letting out whining sounds, and fell forward.

"No... Way..." Muttered Snowskeeper.

"That's... Just not fair." Baathus exclaimed indignantly. And so, the heroes of Olympus were eclipsed and forgotten forever, to be replaced by the child saviour of the universe in the legends of mankind. The chocolate was free for all, and humanity went back to warring between itself. The Umpa-Lumpas were wiped from the face of the galaxy, probably never to return. Willy Wonka was tried and found guilty of being a horrible person, paying below-minimum wages, and trying to enslave the universe, and was routinely put in front of the barrel of a Doomsday Cannon, and forced to stand there while it fired.

So remember, children, if you wish to become heroes, make sure there are no six-year-old girls in the area.


End file.
